So long, and thanks for all the likes

This isn’t the first time I have walked away from Facebook, or at least tried to. Unlike this essay, I don’t think the internet is the best place to live your life.

There is a lot to like (ha ha) about Facebook. It does provide a community, something that is particularly important here in Japan as it can get lonely otherwise. It allows you to keep up with people that you don’t see often and probably wouldn’t think to call or email.

In its pure form, I would probably have kept my account. However, Facebook has made a number of important changes recently that really degraded the experience for me:

not showing all my friends’ posts

not showing things in chronological order and bringing posts back to the top every time someone likes or comments on them

showing things my friends like or comment on

showing ads that have some tenuous link to a friend

not showing all posts from pages or communities

not sending posts from pages to more than 10% of the community without payment

co-operating with the NSA

the new microphone listen function on phones

Facebook is also a time-suck, and was starting to get in the way of things I would rather be working on. At the end of the day I get much more pleasure out of writing something on this blog, or an article, or reading a book, or meeting someone for coffee than by hanging out on Facebook.

I’m going to keep my account for now (for the pages) but I have unfriended everyone except my wife and don’t plan to use the account in a personal capacity again. We’ll see how long I last this time 😉